Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum — Attraction in Marion

I stumbled across the Museum while looking about for local attractions on my GPS while on a retreat with 8 other women at the Mantle Rock Native Education & Cultural Center - it came up first on the list. Being that there was a bit of a rock hound in all of us off to the adventure we went! We were pleasantly surprised to find we had arrived on a weekend they were sponsoring a Rock, Gem & Mineral show with events for everyone in the family as well as day & night digs. We spent about 3 hours touring the museum and talking with the proprietor learning so many new and amazing things about minerals and rocks. This is by far the best display I have ever seen anywhere! It is the best in the country! Even the Smithsonian is in awe of this collection! The personal tour and stories told by Ben E. Clement's son of his father & mother, family and the spectacular private collection of his father's was awesome! He really took the time to share with us and to answer our questions. There was a 10 year old family friend helping out that day who had so many interesting points on minerals and rocks how they are used in daily life - she was a font of information I was very impressed. Their gift shop had loads of rocks, minerals, stone carvings & jewelry of all types at VERY affordable prices. Sunday we went back before leaving town and shopped and toured the show for another 3 hours bringing home new treasures. Mr. Clements popped over to say hi to us again. I love small town America and the friendly people. We all recommend if you are a rock hound or just in the neighbor or passing through, take the time to visit and explore this Not-For-Profit Gem of a Museum! Thanks again Mr. Clements for sharing your fathers life's work with us. I shall return with more people to share...

This museum is awesome! Minerals from all over the world which are nature made diamond shapes, to glow in the dark, to spiked shaped, and everything in between or anything you can imagine like a meteor, fossils and drill core rocks. History of mining operations with all kinds of instruments on display and many pictures. This place is SO much bigger than I would have imagined. The guide we had was a retired surveyor and he was very knowledgeable, which made everything so much more interesting. One of the best things about this museum is most things are out in the open and it's hands on, they incourage you to touch and feel most of the items. Then for an extra small fee, you can go outside in what looks like gravel piles and look for minerals, fossils and anything else you can find. A child with her grandmother found fossils and different minerals in the piles while we were there. It was all so amazing. If you're a rock hound or anything else you will really enjoy this museum and it's sad that it's really not better known as a place to visit. I've posted only a few of my favorite pictures, there's so much...

The museum deserves more stars, the owners and staff are amazing true southern hospitality. Everyone is always friendly and knowledgeable. If you are a rockhound or simply interested in minerals this place is amazing. My family and I travel some and stop in mineral shops on vacations this museum and its owners are known all over. Every person we have met only have good things to say about them. I just miss the digs my wife and I had the privilege to participate in a dig and we loved it, the only regret we have was not being able to take my son before the digs were stopped. I hope that the digs will be available again at some point so more children can get to experience it in hopes to inspire a younger generation to appreciate minerology and geology. I feel the digs were a gateway to inspire children to become interested in minerals and open doors for a future in...